Krakus Mound, Wanda Mound And Kosciuszko Mound: Which Are Free?

Krakow's mounds are one of the city's most confusing free-versus-paid stories, and the confusion is entirely justified. Three mounds, three names that sound alike to a first-time visitor, and two opposite entry rules. Krakus Mound and Wanda Mound cost nothing on any day of the year. Kościuszko Mound sells tickets at PLN 34 for a normal ticket and PLN 26 for a reduced ticket, and it opens its gate for free on exactly three dates: 4 February, 24 March and 15 October.

This guide separates the three mounds, states each entry rule in full, and shows how the paid public transport network fits around them. It also points to the free walking tours listed on Free Things To Do In Krakow for the guided side of the city, none of which meets at a mound. The mounds are self-guided ground, which makes the entry rules the whole of the planning question: know which mound charges, and the rest of the visit is a matter of getting there.

Which Krakow Mounds Are Free?

Two of Krakow's three mounds are free, and one is not. Krakus Mound and Wanda Mound are listed by the city tourism portal among Krakow's admission-free places, with no ticket and no charge on any day. Kościuszko Mound is the exception: it is ticketed at PLN 34 normal and PLN 26 reduced, and it is free only on 4 February, 24 March and 15 October each year.

The split matters because the mounds are often described together, as if they shared one rule. They do not. Krakus Mound and Wanda Mound are open public spaces, listed on the City of Krakow tourism portal among the city's admission-free places. Kościuszko Mound operates as a ticketed attraction, run with an entry charge, opening hours and a small number of free dates.

Planning around the split is simple once the rule is clear. If the plan is a free mound visit, Krakus Mound and Wanda Mound deliver it on any date. If the plan is Kościuszko Mound, either the ticket price goes into the budget or the visit lands on one of the three free dates. There is no fourth option, and no free scheme that covers all three mounds at once.

The districts matter as much as the prices. Krakus Mound sits in Podgórze, on the southern side of the city, the same district that holds the wartime memorials and the former ghetto ground. Wanda Mound sits in Nowa Huta, the eastern district whose Central Square is itself an open public space, free to walk like any city square. Kościuszko Mound sits on the city's western side, which puts it on a different set of tram and bus routes from the other two. A visitor trying to see all three in one outing is crossing the city twice, on paid transport each time.

For a wider picture of what else costs nothing in the city, the Krakow on a budget guide covers the free side of the city district by district.

Is Krakus Mound Free To Visit?

Yes. Krakus Mound is free to visit, with no ticket office, no entry charge and no booking. The city tourism portal lists it among Krakow's admission-free places, and unlike Kościuszko Mound it carries no seasonal ticket and no free-day rotation. Free here means free on every day of the year, with nothing collected and nothing reserved.

Krakus Mound stands in the Podgórze district, on the southern side of the city. Its free status is unconditional: the city tourism portal tags it as admission-free, and there is no operator selling tickets, no turnstile and no season. A visitor arrives, walks up, and that is the whole transaction.

The contrast with Kościuszko Mound is worth stating plainly, because the two names get confused. Krakus Mound is the free one, every day, in Podgórze. Kościuszko Mound is the ticketed one, with its three annual free dates. Nothing about Krakus Mound's status changes through the year, and no part of the visit carries a charge. There is no reduced rate, no normal rate and no concession, because there is no rate at all.

Podgórze is also the district where several of the city's free walking tours meet, on the guided side of the WWII and ghetto story. The Krakow ghetto guide covers that ground in detail, including the free memorials and the ticketed museums of the district. A day built around Krakus Mound can pair the free mound with the district's free memorial ground, with the only fixed cost being the tram fare between them.

Is Wanda Mound Free To Visit?

Yes. Wanda Mound is free to visit, listed by the city tourism portal alongside Krakus Mound among Krakow's admission-free places. There is no ticket, no charge and no booking, and the mound stands in the Nowa Huta district. Like Krakus Mound, it is free on every day of the year rather than on a rotating free-day scheme.

Wanda Mound shares Krakus Mound's rule exactly: admission-free, per the city tourism portal, with no operator charge attached to the visit. The difference is location rather than price. Wanda Mound sits in the Nowa Huta district, which puts it on the eastern side of the city's transport network, while Krakus Mound sits in Podgórze to the south.

Nowa Huta's Central Square is the district's open public space, free to walk in the same way any city square is. Between the mound and the square, the district gives a free-visit outing two anchor points, connected through the paid public transport network rather than by any entry charge. The Church of the Ark of the Lord, known as Arka Pana, also stands in the district, and the mound visit sits inside the same tram and bus territory as both.

For visitors pairing the mounds with the city's guided free side, the site's roster lists 18 free walking tours across GuruWalk and freetour.com, all of them free to join with payment at the walker's own discretion. Three of the strongest English-language options for the Old Town and Wawel side of the city are below.

Each of those walks is a pay-what-you-want listing: nothing is paid to join, and the guide is tipped at the end at whatever the walker decides. The free walking tours in Krakow guide explains how the model works and what to expect from a GuruWalk or freetour.com listing.

Is Kosciuszko Mound Ticketed?

Yes. Kościuszko Mound is ticketed: PLN 34 for a normal ticket and PLN 26 for a reduced ticket, with the mound open daily 9:00-18:00. Unlike Krakus Mound and Wanda Mound there is no free entry on an ordinary day. The only dates on which entry costs nothing are 4 February, 24 March and 15 October.

The ticket prices are published on the mound's official tickets page, which states the PLN 34 normal and PLN 26 reduced prices valid from 1 April 2026 and daily opening from 9:00 to 18:00. This is a different arrangement from anything at the two free mounds: an operator, a price list, set hours and a gate.

The distinction to hold onto is between the mound itself and anything around it. The ticketed attraction is the mound. No free scheme covering the mound's surroundings is published, so nothing on this page calls that ground free either. Krakus Mound and Wanda Mound remain the two mounds whose entire visit is free, and Kościuszko Mound remains the one that is bought.

For visitors weighing the ticket against the city's free side, the comparison is fair to make in one sentence: the same money buys nothing at Krakus Mound because nothing is for sale there, while at Kościuszko Mound it buys the entry the operator charges for. A fuller weighing-up of the ticketed mound, including the free-date option, is in Is Kościuszko Mound Worth Visiting?. And for a guided day that costs nothing up front, the Complete Old Town And Wawel free tour is a freetour.com listing rated 9.9 out of 10 across 144 freetour.com reviews.

Which Three Days A Year Is Kosciuszko Mound Free?

Kościuszko Mound is free on 4 February, 24 March and 15 October, and on no other date. On those three days entry costs nothing instead of the usual PLN 34 normal or PLN 26 reduced ticket. The 15 October date marks the anniversary of Kościuszko's death, and the mound keeps the same three dates each year.

The three dates are the whole free scheme, and they are published on the official tickets page alongside the prices. Nothing in the scheme extends to other days, and no booking arrangement replaces the ticket on ordinary dates. A visitor who wants Kościuszko Mound for free plans around one of the three dates; a visitor who misses them buys the ticket.

The dates fall in three different seasons, which shapes how a trip can use them. February sits in the city's winter period, March in early spring, and October in autumn. A visitor whose travel dates are fixed either lands on one of the three or does not, and the ticket price is the fallback. The Krakow in winter guide covers the free side of the city in the season that contains the February date.

How Do You Reach The Mounds By Public Transport?

All three mounds sit inside Krakow's paid public transport network, so the ride costs money even when the mound does not. A 60-minute ticket costs PLN 8 and a 24-hour zone I ticket costs PLN 20, per the operator's published fare table. Krakus Mound is reached through Podgórze, Wanda Mound through the Nowa Huta district, and Kościuszko Mound through the city's western side.

Public transport in Krakow is not free. The fare table published by the city's transport operator lists a 60-minute ticket at PLN 8 and a 24-hour zone I ticket at PLN 20, and those fares apply to every tram and bus journey, including the journeys to and from the mounds. The operator's fares page carries the current table.

The network itself is in motion. The operator announced regular trams on the new line from Wieczysta to Mistrzejowice from 26 September 2026, and the heritage Krakow Museum Line, which ran vintage trams every Sunday and holiday from June, finished its season on 27 September. The fare table dated 2 March 2026 still applies, and no fare change has been announced. For a mound trip, the practical point is that the standard fares above are the ones to budget with.

The budgeting point is that "free mound" describes the destination, not the journey. Krakus Mound and Wanda Mound cost nothing at the gate, and the tram or bus fare is the only money in the outing. Kościuszko Mound adds the entry ticket on top of the fare, unless the visit lands on one of the three free dates. A 24-hour zone I ticket at PLN 20 can cover several free sights in one day, mounds included, which is often the cheapest way to join the free side of the city together.

One of the featured free walks on this site meets at a tram stop itself: the Complete Old Town And Wawel, English walk, a freetour.com listing that meets at the Teatr Słowackiego tram stop, rated 9.9 out of 10 across 144 freetour.com reviews and running 2 hours 30 minutes in English. A walker can ride the paid network to the stop, join the walk for nothing, and pay the guide only what the walk was worth to them.

For questions about the transport side of a Krakow trip, Is Public Transport Free In Krakow? answers the fare question in full.

Which Free Walking Tours Meet Near The Mounds?

None of the 18 free walking tours listed across GuruWalk and freetour.com meets at a mound. The walks meet in the Old Town, Kazimierz and Podgórze districts, at points such as Main Market Square, Szeroka Street and Płaszów. The mounds are self-guided ground; the free guided walks cover the city's historic centre and its WWII sites.

The Old Town meeting points carry the largest review pools on the roster. The Old Town And Wawel, Bilingual walk, a GuruWalk listing run by Krakow Explorers, meets at Main Market Square, runs 2 hours 30 minutes in English and Spanish, and is rated 4.86 out of 5 across 6,990 GuruWalk reviews. That review pool is the largest of any walk listed on this site, and the rating scale is GuruWalk's own out-of-5 scale.

A second Main Market Square option is the City Walks Old Town And Wawel walk, also on GuruWalk: 2 hours 30 minutes in English, rated 4.82 out of 5 across 290 GuruWalk reviews, with City Walks Krakow as the operator. The same meeting point gives a walker two English-language choices on the same square, both free to join and both paid only by tip at the end.

The Podgórze and wartime side of the city is where the free walks come closest to the mound districts. The WWII Jewish Quarter And Ghetto, English walk is a freetour.com listing run by City Walks Krakow, meeting at St Mary's Church, 2 hours 30 minutes in English and rated 9.6 out of 10 across 1,861 freetour.com reviews. The Jewish 3-in-1, Spielberg Sites, 3 Hours walk is a GuruWalk listing run by Katarzyna, meeting at the Old Synagogue in Kazimierz, 3 hours in English and Polish, rated 4.83 out of 5 across 93 GuruWalk reviews. The Plaszow Camp And Schindler, 2 Hours walk is a freetour.com listing run by Tomasz Łyczko, meeting at Płaszów, 2 hours in English and rated 9.4 out of 10 across 22 freetour.com reviews. The two freetour.com walks are rated on that platform's out-of-10 scale, and the GuruWalk walk on its out-of-5 scale; the scales are never converted.

For the mound visits themselves, no guided free walk exists: Krakus Mound, Wanda Mound and Kościuszko Mound are walked alone or not at all. The three walks below cover the guided side of the city's wartime history, all free to join.

Common Questions About Krakus Mound, Wanda Mound And Kosciuszko Mound